Criminal law, unlike civil law, is a system of laws related to the punishment of people who commit crimes. therefore, when two people dispute their rights in a civil case, a criminal proceeding involves the government deciding whether to punish a person for an act or an omission.
A “crime” is any act or omission in violation of a law that prohibits the act or omission.
criminal codes
Each state decides what conduct to designate as a crime. therefore, each state has its own penal code. Congress has also chosen to sanction certain behaviors, codifying federal criminal law in Title 18 of the United States. code. Criminal laws vary significantly between states and the federal government. While some statutes resemble the common law criminal code, others, such as the New York Criminal Law, closely mimic the Model Criminal Code (MPC).
criminal procedure codification
Congress codified federal criminal law and criminal procedure in Title 18 of the United States. code with secs. 1 to 2725 relating to crimes. Title 18 designates various conduct as federal crimes, such as arson, use of chemical weapons, forgery and forgery, embezzlement, espionage, genocide, and kidnapping. these statutes generally prescribe an appropriate maximum sentence for a convicted person. for additional federal regulations, see 28 c.f.r.
The federal government has also codified the specific procedures that must be carried out during the course of a criminal proceeding in the federal rules of criminal procedure.
elements of a crime
A person commits a crime if they act in a way that meets all the elements of a crime. the statute that establishes the crime also establishes the elements of the crime. In general, every crime involves three elements: first, the act or conduct (“actus reus”); second, the mental state of the individual at the time of the act (“mens rea”); and third, the causality between the act and the effect (typically “proximate causality” or “reverse causality”). In a criminal proceeding, the government has the burden of proof to establish all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
according to the supreme court in elonis v. united states, 575 u.s. __ (2015), when a statute does not prescribe a specific state of mind, a court will infer the “mens rea that is necessary to separate wrongful conduct from innocent.”
types of crimes
crimes can be generally separated into four categories: felonies, misdemeanors, incipient crimes, and strict liability crimes.
Each state and the federal government decide what type of conduct to criminalize. at common law, there were nine felonies (murder, robbery, manslaughter, rape, sodomy, larceny, arson, mutilation, and burglary) and several misdemeanors (i.e., assault, battery, false imprisonment, perjury and jury intimidation).
United States code is much more extensive than common law. however, congress has limited power to make criminal laws. Since this power is generally reserved for the states, state criminal codes, such as New York’s criminal law, are much more complicated than those in the us. uu. code. after and. the criminal law prescribes nine levels of felonies, ranging from residential mortgage fraud in the fourth degree to terrorism.
sentence directives
The federal government and state governments have created various sentencing guidelines. federal courts use federal sentencing guidelines, while state courts will follow state-specific sentencing guidelines.
responsibility of accomplices
When multiple parties are involved, the traditional first step is to classify the participants according to the following categories:
- principal in the first degree: those who actually commit a crime (ie, the perpetrator). the perpetrators are not accomplices and this section does not belong to them.
- principal in the second degree: those who assisted, advised, directed or encouraged the perpetrator in the actual commission of a crime. the accomplice is considered an accomplice.
- accessories to the act – those who helped, advised, ordered or encouraged the perpetrator to commit the crime, without being present at the time of the commission. an accomplice (before the fact) is considered an accomplice.
- accomplice after the fact: those who assist a person, knowing that the person is a criminal, in an effort to make detection, arrest, and prosecution more difficult. judgment of the person. , or punishment. accessories (after the fact) are guilty of a separate offence, so this section does not address them.
To convict an accomplice, the prosecutor must establish the actus reus and mens rea requirements. that is, the prosecutor must prove that the accomplice acted in support of the perpetrator and that he was in the requisite state of mind while he was doing so. it is important to note that some jurisdictions allow accomplices to be prosecuted independently of the main perpetrator. therefore, an accomplice could be found guilty of a more serious crime than the principal. in certain jurisdictions, an accomplice may be convicted while the alleged perpetrator is acquitted.
after the fact
an ex post facto law retroactively punishes actions. the constitution explicitly prohibits these practices in article 1, sections 9 and 10.
punish for status
A law cannot punish a person simply because of their status. As the Supreme Court explained in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962), any statute that criminalizes a person’s status inflicts cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. for example, a state could not punish a person for “homelessness,” which would be a status crime, but it could punish a homeless person for trespassing or loitering, which involves some conduct.
defenses
There are a number of defenses available to a defendant in a criminal proceeding. The following list illustrates some common defenses that people rely on:
- lack of proof: the simplest defense for a person in a criminal proceeding is to claim that the prosecution has not or cannot prove an element of the crime.
- mistakes: in certain circumstances , the error can be used as a defense.
- error of law: an error regarding the legal status or effect of some situation.
- error of fact: an error regarding the facts of some situation.
- self-defense: the use of force to protect oneself from attempted injury by another person.
- defense of property: a person may use force to protect their property from a serious crime that occurs inside.
- defense of others: the right of a person to protect a third party with reasonable force against an aggressor who seeks to exert force on the third party.
- need: sometimes referred to as the ” choice of evils,” the defense of necessity allows a person to engage in conduct that would otherwise be wrongful if, by doing so, the person avoids further harm.
- Duress: A person may plead duress if another person compelled them to engage in unlawful conduct by force or threat of force.
- Intoxication: A person who was unintentionally intoxicated may plead drunkenness as a defense against any crime. a person who was voluntarily intoxicated can claim intoxication as a defense only for crimes that require a specific mental state.
- insanity: an insane person cannot achieve the required mental state and therefore cannot be declared guilty.
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further reading
For more information on criminal law, see this law review article from Florida State University, this law review article from Harvard, and this international and comparative law review article from Boston College.
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